A priory is a
monastery of men or women under religious vows that is headed by a
prior or prioress. They were created by the
Catholic Church
The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...
. Priories may be monastic houses of
monks or
nuns (such as the
Benedictines, the
Cistercians, or the
Charterhouses). Houses of
canons & canonesses regular also use this term, the alternative being "canonry".
Mendicant houses, of
friars, nuns, or tertiary sisters (such as the
Friars Preachers,
Augustinian Hermits, and
Carmelites) also exclusively use this term.
In
pre-Reformation England, if an
abbey church was raised to cathedral status, the abbey became a
cathedral
A cathedral is a church (building), church that contains the of a bishop, thus serving as the central church of a diocese, Annual conferences within Methodism, conference, or episcopate. Churches with the function of "cathedral" are usually s ...
priory. The
bishop
A bishop is an ordained member of the clergy who is entrusted with a position of Episcopal polity, authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance and administration of di ...
, in effect, took the place of the abbot, and the monastery itself was headed by a prior.
History
Priories first came to existence as subsidiaries to the
Abbey of Cluny. Many new houses were formed that were all subservient to the abbey of Cluny and called Priories. As such, the priory came to represent the
Benedictine ideals espoused by the
Cluniac reforms as smaller, lesser houses of Benedictines of Cluny. There were likewise many conventual priories in Germany and Italy during the
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...
, and in England all monasteries attached to cathedral churches were known as cathedral priories.
[Ott, Michael. "Priory". ''The Catholic Encyclopedi''a. Vol. 12. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911. 4 May 2014.]
The Benedictines and their offshoots (
Cistercians and
Trappists among them), the
Premonstratensians
The Order of Canons Regular of Prémontré (), also known as the Premonstratensians, the Norbertines and, in United Kingdom, Britain and Ireland, as the White Canons (from the colour of their religious habit, habit), is a religious order of cano ...
, and the
military orders distinguish between conventual and simple or obedientiary priories.
*Conventual priories are those autonomous houses that have no
abbots, either because the canonically required number of twelve monks has not yet been reached, or for some other reason.
*Simple or obedientiary priories are dependencies of abbeys. Their superior, who is subject to the abbot in everything, is called a simple or obedientiary prior. These monasteries are satellites of the mother abbey. The
Cluniac order is notable for being organised entirely on this obedientiary principle, with a single abbot at the Abbey of Cluny, and all other houses dependent priories.
Priory is also used to refer to the geographic headquarters of several
commanderies of
knights.
Sources and references
External links
*
{{Authority control
Christian monasteries
pl:Klasztor